


Hot Chocolate Tastes Like Flying

by grimmfairy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Castiel in the Bunker, Domestic, Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, Hell Flashbacks, Hot Chocolate, Human Castiel, Human Castiel in the Bunker, Insomnia, Insomniac Castiel, M/M, Newly Human Castiel, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, Sad Castiel, Sad Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-02
Updated: 2015-10-02
Packaged: 2018-04-24 12:06:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4918936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grimmfairy/pseuds/grimmfairy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel has found the bunker. He can't sleep as usual and is joined by occasional insomniac Dean, who brings a treat to his fallen angel as the two contemplate the future and their separate traumas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hot Chocolate Tastes Like Flying

Castiel sat quietly in the room of the bunker that was dubbed "the living room". What did that mean? Obviously the room was not alive, therefore not living. Dean had tried to explain it once to him, but it still made no logical sense. He asked Dean a lot of questions, always had. Especially now that he had to live as a human. Castiel stared in the direction of the bunker entrance, envisioning the night he had finally returned.

_It was raining and cold, only a few degrees above freezing during the last hour. Castiel shivered pitifully in his stolen clothing, soaked to the bone through the "water resistant" coat he had stolen. Water dripped from his bangs into his eyes. He had been walking for miles when it started raining about two miles from the bunker. Walking was the best way to avoid all of the angels that had fallen months before as it could not be traced the way taking cabs or buses could be. It had been a long time since he had slept more than an hour or two at a time, and even longer since he slept in a bed. Hotels seemed too risky, and Castiel didn't have money to spare on them. His stomach rumbled loudly again, and the daggers of hunger stabbed his stomach again as Castiel tried to ignore how long ago it had been since he ate something more substantial than...well, really more substantial than a cup of coffee. But Castiel kept going. He was so close.  
_

_When he reached the outer door of the bunker, Castiel saw Dean standing outside under the overhang of the bunker. He seemed to be watching the storm. Castiel stayed out of sight for a few minutes, just watching the man. Dean had filled out slightly, the effects of a well-stocked kitchen no doubt. But his eyes were older than Castiel remembered. Castiel slowly stepped towards him until he was close enough for Dean to reach out and touch, careful not to scare the hunter and earn a blow to the face. Dean stared at him for what seemed like years with an unreadable expression on his face as panic began to rise in the former angel. Then a smile stretched slowly across his tanned face._

_"Hey, Cas." Dean opened the bunker door. "Come on in before you get pneumonia."_

_Castiel suddenly felt his exhaustion, his pain and his sorrow crash down on him and he stumbled forward. Dean caught him gently and wrapped his arms around the former angel. Castiel sank into Dean's warmth and hugged him back. As an angel, he had rarely, if ever, returned an embrace. But as he was human now, it seemed only fitting. Dean immediately noticed the tremors wracking Castiel's frame and the new gauntness of his frame._

_"Geez Cas, you're freezing. Let's get you taken care of. Sam!" Dean called inside. "Cas is back!"_

Castiel turned his gaze to the table in front of him, contemplating the design of the wood. He hadn't slept much even in the bunker, too on edge to relax. He had read many books, but even that was only a passing distraction. He had no identity.

"Hey." Dean walked into the living room, rubbing his eyes with one hand and carrying two mugs in the other. "What are you doing up?"

"Thinking." Castiel answered as Dean placed one mug in front of him. It held a steaming brown liquid that smelled wonderfully familiar. "Dean, what is this?"

"Hot chocolate." Dean answered. "You've never tried it, have you?"

"No. Though I was there when chocolate was discovered." Castiel lifted the mug and took a sip. The liquid seemed to warm his entire being, causing his toes to curl and his face to flush in a very human way. Before, as an angel, all he would have found in the mug was the taste of the gritty chocolate essence, the combination of chemicals coming together under the dissolved sugar. But not now, now he was human. The drink was warm, almost filling in a way, and just this side of too hot. It tasted like happiness, Castiel decided. "Thank you, Dean."

"So what are you thinking about?" Dean asked. Castiel averted his gaze, staring into the mug of liquid happiness before him. "It's ok if you don't want to tell me."

"Why are you awake?" Castiel answered with a question of his own, though he was certain he already knew the answer. This time, Dean averted his eyes. 

_The screams never stopped. Men, women, old, young, black, white, Dean didn't know who they were coming from or from which direction. It didn't really matter who made the unholy sounds or where they came from. In Hell all screams sound the same,. Except for his. While others screamed for God, for mercy, for an end, Dean screamed for Sam. No matter how much of his body was cut away, his skin flayed and muscles carved off in chunks, he could always scream. And his torturer seemed to take great pride in his-_

Castiel's hesitant touch to his hand snapped him out of the increasingly real flashback. Castiel searched his face for a moment before retracting his hand, blue eyes curious but understanding, and still so old. Ancient. Dean sighed out an apology before averting his eyes.

They sat in silence for awhile, drinking and losing themselves in their own thoughts. Finally Dean broke the silence again.

"I don't think I'll ever stop dreaming about Hell. Not completely." Dean unconsciously rubbed the red hand-print on his shoulder. "But that's alright, I guess. It turned out...in the end. Did you have a nightmare, Cas?"

"No. At least, I don't believe it was what humans consider a nightmare," Castiel said softly with his gravelly voice. "I wasn't frighted, or in any perceivable damage. It was a pleasurable dream. I was flying over the Pacific Ocean, though I cannot recall ever having done so before... The air was warm, though that never matter much before, and I was just...coasting on the breeze. Heaven was whole, my brothers and sisters were alive, and I was among them again. My Father had not abandoned me, us. His creations."

Castiel was not prepared for the emotions that the memory of his wings brought, or the way the muscles over his shoulder blades twitched almost as if mourning the loss of their familiar weight. He had not allowed himself much time to mourn the loss of his grace, the way he could no longer feel the presence of Jimmy Novak within the vessel. Castiel wasn't in a vessel anymore though, he supposed, he was a real human now. An unfamiliar sensation tickled his eyes, and his vision became blurry.

"That sounds..." Dean searched for a word, but before he found the right one Castiel's eyes overflowed and a tear rolled down his face, and the former angel wiped if away like he unsure how to react. "Cas?"

"I will never fly again." Castiel said sadly. "Although you have asked how I teleport, angels truly do-did fly, at speeds far beyond the capacity of human understanding. I used to have wings, invisible to you but beautiful to behold to other angels. All angels' wings are beautiful, none more beautiful than any others', even those of the Archangels. They simply have more."

Dean sat quietly listening to Castiel talk about his wings, learning to fly with the help of his brothers and sisters. How every angel's wings are unique. Balthazar's were a kaleidoscope of color, swirling and wild enough to match him. Uriel's were a metallic, polished steel gray, as hard and unyielding as he was. Gabriel's were ever changing, sometimes, black, sometimes blue, sometimes different colors. At Dean's gentle request, Castiel described his own which were blacker than the blackest obsidian, tinged around the edges with a blue sheen and wide enough to touch the sides of one of the bedrooms in the bunker. Words poured from Castiel in that rich deep voice that was sad beyond comprehension and Dean was helpless to do anything but listen and occasionally sip from his cooling mug. Finally, he fell silent. Castiel looked broken, with days old stubble and dark bags under his tired eyes. Dean had watched with concern as the angel stayed awake after he and Sam went to sleep, night after night spent reading in the library.

"Cas." Dean's voice commanded the former angel to look at him. He placed a large hand on Castiel's wrist. He needed Castiel to understand him. "We stopped the a _pocalypse_. We stopped the _devil_. We'll find a way to reverse what Metatron did. We'll get your grace back. You will fly again, okay? I promise we'll figure it out."

"Dean, you should not promise things that you cannot deliver." Castiel chastised lightly, but the hope that he would once again fly was once again in his soul. Even if that hope was a small flame, weak as a candle. They sat in silence once more, looking for something to say. Castiel saw how deep in thought Dean was, and then he noticed an unusual feeling. He wanted more of the hot chocolate that Dean had made him. "Dean...can you show me how to make hot chocolate?"

"Sure, Cas." Dean grinned and walked into the kitchen. "By the way, until you figure out how to use the toaster, this is the only thing you are allowed to make in my kitchen." He showed Castiel how to turn on the stove, and how to heat the water in the kettle to just under boiling. Add the powder from the little foil-lined pouch, stir, and add milk. Castiel was about to take his new mug when Dean stopped him. Castiel turned questioning blue eyes towards him.

"Is there something else?"

"Yeah, something...something i remember my mom used to do for me." Dean said with a faraway look in his eyes. He retrieved a strange looking from the refrigerator and preceded to squirt what Castiel recognized proudly as "whipped cream". "My mom put whipped cream on hot chocolate when I was sad. And you looked sad, so..."

Castiel had to admit, it was a good addition. The taste reminded him of flying.


End file.
